Got some web space you rent for a personal site? Good, then you can likely get around any restrictions your employer, school, or other eye-shielding authority have wrongly put in your way with a quick PHProxy installation.

There are, of course, plenty of newer and more tech-savvy—and likely more private and secure—means of working your way around a web filter that seems unfair. PHProxy just happens to be one that is darned easy to install on any web space that can run PHP scripts, which these days is most of them.

Grab the ZIP download from SourceForge, extract the folder inside, then copy it into a folder on YourPersonalSite.com, filling in your actual site name. Head to, for example, YourPersonalSite.com/phproxy, and you're greeted with a little address bar, and lots of data retention and privacy-enhancing options to determine what kind of traffic you'll generate when you head to your chosen site.

Should you use this to look at very bad stuff that your boss would instantly fire you for glimpsing, should he discover your tracks? No, you should not, for many reasons. Can it be a quick little experiment in anonymizing your browsing records and getting past lockdown for the occasional sports score or Facebook check? You make the call.